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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law
Threaten Sentencing Enhancement, Coerce Plea, (Wash, Rinse,) Repeat: A Cause Of Wrongful Conviction By Guilty Plea, Wes R. Porter
Threaten Sentencing Enhancement, Coerce Plea, (Wash, Rinse,) Repeat: A Cause Of Wrongful Conviction By Guilty Plea, Wes R. Porter
Publications
Our American criminal justice system is too often described as broken. It was not a clean break in a single, isolated location. Instead, our criminal justice system suffers from many, many little nicks, bumps, and bruises at the hands of its keepers. The evolution of sentencing enhancements within our criminal justice system represents the latest nagging, reoccurring injury. In the ultimate Trojan horse to criminal defendants, the Supreme Court sought to protect the individual rights of the accused with its recent decisions on sentencing enhancements. But at the hands of lawmakers, the judiciary, and prosecutors, criminal defendants suffer more. Our …
Values And Assumptions In Criminal Adjudication, Benjamin Levin
Values And Assumptions In Criminal Adjudication, Benjamin Levin
Publications
This Response to Andrew Manuel Crespo's Systemic Facts: Toward Institutional Awareness in Criminal Courts proceeds in two Parts. In Part I, I argue that Crespo presents a compelling case for the importance of systemic factfinding to the task of criminal court judges. If, as a range of scholars has argued, criminal courts are increasingly serving a quasi-administrative function, then shouldn’t they at least be administrating accurately? Systemic Facts provides a novel account of how — with comparatively little institutional reform — courts might begin to serve as more effective administrators. However, in Part II, I also argue that Crespo’s account …
Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin
Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin
Publications
This Article argues that the increasingly prevalent critiques of the War on Drugs apply to other areas of criminal law. To highlight the broader relevance of these critiques, this Article uses as its test case the criminal regulation of gun possession. This Article identifies and distills three lines of drug war criticism and argues that they apply to possessory gun crimes in much the same way that they apply to drug crimes. Specifically, this Article focuses on: (1) race- and class-based critiques; (2) concerns about police and prosecutorial power; and (3) worries about the social and economic costs of mass …